Inhaltsbereich

From the Cambridge Platonists to English Romanticism

Referent: Prof. Dr. Douglas Hedley | Moderation: Dr. James Vigus

17.04.2012
um
18:15 Uhr

From the Cambridge Platonists to English Romanticism "Sweet is the lore which Nature brings;/ Our meddling intellect/ Mis-shapes the beauteous forms of things:—/ We murder to dissect" (Wordsworth). This 'Romantic' idea has its roots in problems of the 17th century, when the New Science raised intriguing questions about aesthetics: what place is left for life or art amidst the push and shove of mechanistic physics? The view of nature developed by Cambridge Platonists such as Henry More and Ralph Cudworth, though now neglected, deeply influenced poets from Traherne to Wordsworth and Coleridge.